So a week ago today I was at work when I noticed that the vision in right eye was suddenly a bit blurry, and also that the light in the room seemed to be strobing. This was, as one might imagine, a bit disconcerting. Worse still, I discovered by moving my hands around while looking straight ahead, that I had a blind spot in my right eye. That was more than disconcerting, it was frightening.

On the other hand, twenty minutes later the blurriness, strobe effect and blind spot were one. My vision was normal again. Nonetheless, I called my eye doctor and scheduled an exam at the earliest possible time. Which was this morning.

I've got glaucoma. It's not severe, my eye doctor caught it early and I'm treating it with eye drops, but still. And I've had laser surgery in my left eye for a torn retina. So I worried that perhaps the vision effects were a symptom of either glaucoma (some sudden worsening, perhaps) or of another retinal problem. Or, hell, a tumor or something. Who knows?

Turns out, just from the description of my symptoms my eye doc was pretty sure it was a migraine. An "ocular migraine", meaning that there's no pain associated with it, just vision effects. Nonetheless, he dilated my eyes and blinded me repeatedly with bright lights while he carefully examined the insides of my eyes. No retinal tears, no other evidence of anything more. Which was a great relief.

I asked if it could recur, and he said it might. They don't really know what triggers them a lot of the time. He also told me that other than pulling over if I was driving when it happened (because it could be distracting) it wasn't anything to worry about. Although if something like it happened and there were other symptoms (like feeling like a curtain was being lowered over my field of vision) THAT was something to be concerned about. But this? Not to worry.

And thinking upon it, I think I've had episodes like this before. But usually they follow being exposed to intense lights or glare, so I never realized it was anything more than being sensitive to such things. This one just seemed to come out of nowhere. It was frightening, but turns out to be about as harmless as one could hope for.